US Navy awards Saronic production agreement for 10 Marauder autonomous ships

What's the deal? The U.S. Navy on 30 September 2026 awarded Saronic Technologies a production agreement for 10 Marauder autonomous ships, a 55-metre (180-foot) uncrewed vessel built at its Louisiana shipyard, after the platform passed at-sea testing under the Navy's Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) marketplace. The Navy put the average cost at about $40 million per vessel, with deliveries starting as early as the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027 (from July 2027).

Why it matters: The order is among three production agreements the Navy issued on 29 September for 10 medium unmanned surface vessels each, alongside Huntington Ingalls Industries and Galliano Marine Services, using other transaction agreements to accelerate procurement. Marauder is designed for logistics and modular payloads, carrying up to 150 metric tons and running fully autonomous or under remote supervision; in trials it demonstrated autonomous tracking and manoeuvring with radar switched off, using only passive sensors.

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